Representation Essay - Y13 Film 'The Secret' October Assessment

Representation refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of 'reality' such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Our film 'The Secret' is based around a homosexual teen male, so the main topics represented in the film are sexuality and age. We tried to represent the topic of sexuality through the eyes of the character of Will himself, and show the audience what many homosexual people have to deal with on a daily basis.

Judith Butler's 'Queer Theory' challenges the idea that gender is part of the essential self that is fixed and immoveable; in other words, that our male/female gender doesn't control all aspects of our identity or how we perceive other peoples identity. The theory developed as a way of combating negative representations of gay sexuality in the media. It combats the idea that people should be divided and categorised due to their sexual orientation or practice and that a persons' identity shouldn't be limited to their sexual preference. This theory can be applied to 'The Secret' as we tried to break the 'gay stereotype' as much as possible, by making the setting of the room just like a typical teenage boy's room which we thought helped to challenge the stereotype that all gay people are feminine.

'The Secret' contains many aspects which represent sexuality through the 'Queer Theory' such as costume and setting. Will's costume consisted of a regular blue hoodie and some tracksuit bottoms, which is the outfit of a typical teenage boy. To give the same effect, we made the setting of the bedroom very gender neutral, and almost edging on masculine to represent his gender, despite his sexual orientation. For example, we had multiple text books and school books lying on the first desk you see as Will enters the room, accompanied by a pair of tossed shorts and his school blazer which represents how he is a typical teenager with a messy room. As well as these, we also had some aftershaves placed on another desk above it, which helps to represent the more masculine side of Will's character.

Along with the objects within Will's room being gender neutral and almost slightly masculine, we also kept this theme in place by keeping the colours throughout the film neutral, featuring blues, greys and reds which are all gender neutral colours. All of these small details add up to give the audience an overall feel that Will is just as masculine as any other boy of his age, despite his sexuality.

Another theory that can be applied to our film is Anthony Gidden's 'Traditionalist vs Post Traditionalist View of Society' theory. Media representations of society can be seen as traditional or post traditionalist. Traditional views in terms of our film would be people having a narrow minded view towards sexuality and believing that romantic feelings are only acceptable between a man and a woman rather than between two people of the same sex. This theory heavily relates to our film as Will obviously has a post traditionalist view on sexuality within society, where as his sister and other family members have a traditional view on sexuality, as we see when Will's sister uses a derogatory term for homosexuals as she hears Will listening to a debate for gay rights. Added to this, we purposely added the radio interview debate about gay rights to allow the audience to have an insight into the current societies views on the topic, and into Will's personal views on the topic. It also allowed us to show how serious the topic of gay rights is to Will, and how his post-traditional views help to define him. The fact that this theory can be applied to our film suitably shows that we efficiently brought across the topic and showed the views of two separate people within a short amount of time, while also expressing Will's emotions towards his sister's views by showing his stuttering and unsure reaction towards his relationship as she insults homosexuality.

Media texts usually represent the world in order to support a dominant ideology. An ideology is a belief system that is constructed and presented by a media text. Dominant ideologies are central to people's belief systems, and it's often difficult to challenge them effectively, but as traditional views are changing on homosexuality, we decided to challenge the dominant ideology of marriage and family. This dominant ideology states that the 'right way' to live is to marry an opposite sex partner and have children, which we decided to challenge by surrounding the film around a homosexual teen; so although the film doesn't feature marriage or children, it does surround a same sex relationship which is seen as taboo to many people. Dominant ideologies are considered hegemonic, which is the way in which those in power maintain their control. Our aim for the film was to challenge the belief that romantic relationships are strictly between two people of the opposite sex, by trying to normalise same sex relationships - this is why we named the other boy in the relationship 'Taylor' because it is a unisex name, so to the audience, the romantic relationship occurring was nothing out of the ordinary in terms of the dominant ideology until they were actually introduced to Taylor.

Dick Hebdidge said that subculture is a group of like minded individuals who feel neglected by societal standards and who develop a sense of identity which differs to the dominant in which they belong. 'The Secret' represents Will and Taylor as a group of these like minded individuals as they both belong to the gay community and have the same belief system, and as a whole many people disagree with that belief system, so it can be argued that they feel neglected by societal standards. However, the two characters experience this differently, as Will clearly doesn't have the support system of his family, which Taylor seems to have as we see when he mentions that his mother wants to meet Will, suggesting that Taylor's family are open to and accepting of his sexuality. So, although they both belong to the same subculture group, they experience their neglect from societal standards differently based on the company they surround themselves with.

The dominant representation of young people/teenagers tends to involve anti-social behaviour, gang culture, disrespect, drink and drugs, and teen pregnancies. In order to present the struggles Will goes through with his sexuality as a teen, we decided to leave these typical themes out of Will's character, and simply focus on his inner issues. The theory on age representation of teenagers doesn't necessarily apply to Will's character, however, it can be applied to the character of his sister. This can be argued because, as stated before, a typical tendency of a teen in films is disrespect, and in our film, Will's sister disrespects the opinion of others as she insults the gay community and those standing up for them, as she uses a derogatory term as she voices her opinion on the gay rights debate playing on the radio.

Another theory that can be applied to the film is Psychoanalysis and 'The Mirror' by Lacan. Lacan's theory about 'the mirror' is an idea around the idea of identity. He considers the point which a person develops a sense of self and conscious identity. He considers the point at which a person recognises their own reflection and begins to consider how other perceive them and modify themselves to satisfy the perception of how others see them. Will never physically changes himself in the film, however he does hide his sexuality in order to gain the respect of his family and avoid being an outcast due to their opinions. This was important to us in the film, as this is a true representation of many gay people in society which we felt was an important aspect to include so many viewers who are gay themselves could relate to Will's hesitation to be honest about his sexuality, even to the closest people in his life.

In conclusion, many theories can be applied to 'The Secret' intentionally or unintentionally. These theories help to make the film come to life and present the real meaning behind the film itself. The theories also help viewers relate to the film or even change their opinions based on seeing issues from a characters point of view.